


Co-dependence

by alphera



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: mention of war, potentially disturbing thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-31
Updated: 2012-07-31
Packaged: 2017-11-11 02:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphera/pseuds/alphera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They need each other. This is why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Co-dependence

**John.**  
  
When you’ve been sent off to war, you start to think that nothing can surprise you anymore, be it bad or good. It’s hard to be surprised when you’ve seen real life heroes and real life villains battling it out with heavy artillery. By then, you start to realise that there’s no point to it - it evens out in the end, after all. Heroes can kill, villains can save. Nothing happens, really. It’s just a large and violent pissing contest - who wins gets to brag and be all self-righteous. No more, no less. So, John thinks, despite his therapist’s claims to the opposite, he firmly believes that Sherlock should be made into a treatment plan for war veterans with PTSD.  
  
In war, the first thing you learn about ‘Real Life’ is that there are no “truths,” everything depends on the word of whoever’s in charge. But Sherlock - he can call facts that no one, not even his enemies, can refute. It doesn’t matter what anyone says or wants to believe - he doesn’t bend when facts are concerned, not one whit, and in the end no one can say he's wrong.  
  
The second thing you find out in war is that nothing you do really matters. Save one person, another one dies. Shoot down one camp, another one crops up. End one war, give it a year or two, and there will be another one. But Sherlock - he _does_ things. When he sets his mind to _do_ something, it _happens_. He might need to antagonise half the world and run on the rooftops of all of England - but he gets to it eventually. This is why helping Sherlock feels like  _purpose_. Because, after that rocky start, it is easy to realise that he helps Sherlock in more than a “preening his feathers” kind of way - because really, Sherlock is utterly useless at taking care of the little things in life that necessitate survival to a ripe age.  
  
The last ‘Big Thing’ you realise in war (well, sometimes it's first, but for John, who joined because of stubborn idealism and belief in the goodness of men and all that rot, it's the last) is that altruism is a lie. Everyone just cares for his own hide - or at the very least, the hides of the people (or things) they like best. The funny thing about Sherlock is that despite everyone calling him a “sociopath,” he’s quite possibly one of the best people John’s ever met. It's hard to see it, but John notices it in the way Sherlock only helps those who need it, money or fame be damned. Sherlock pretends he only accepts the interesting ones - but John’s seen him take many cases he normally calls “boring” -– cases that end with teary, thankful Little People.  
  
The thing with Sherlock is he steps on people’s toes enough that they forget that it’s virtually impossible for him to not have known it was going to be boring from the beginning. John's seen it - that drive to help others - in the way Sherlock scolds him, telling him that keeping a cool head is better than jumping around in a panic. He's seen it in Sherlock’s frustration when the old lady gave them that clue at the cost of her life -– even if it wasn't technically a ‘loss’ since he solved the puzzle in time. And, as self-serving as it might be, John's seen it when Sherlock ran to him that time at the pool to tear the semtex jacket off; has seen the good in the quickness of the man’s breath and the sheer _relief_ in those eyes.  
  
John’s not the only one that knows this either. Mycroft knows - it’s why he keeps watch over them. Lestrade knows - it’s why he tells John to stay. But he doesn't need either of them to tell him to stick around - he knows Sherlock, knows what he is and what he’s capable of - he knows what the rest of the world can’t see.  
  
When John calls Sherlock “brilliant,” it always means all of this and more.  
  
  
(NOTE: I know that Sherlock’s not exactly a saint, but these are through John’s heavily-tinted glasses. The post PTSD, searching for meaning glasses. Also that is why this fic is called co-dependence. It’s not exactly what most people would call a healthy relationship, but it works for them.)  
  
  
 **Sherlock.**  
  
The problem with the world, Sherlock thinks, is that no one appreciates genius. People are self-centred and arrogant. They think that they know best and they despise it when you tell them they don’t. They breed ignorance in their pride and take insult when it is pointed out to them.  
  
Thankfully, Sherlock knows better. The reason he is (quite nearly) never wrong is because he has learned early on that he is the only one who cares enough to _think_ beyond whatever inconsequential limit other people have put on their brains. Oftentimes, it feels like he is the only one who _really_ appreciates ‘Truth.’  
  
What people need to understand is that there _is no_ limit. There _is no_ impossibility, only improbability. When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Ergo, it’s not impossible for Sherlock to _know_ _things_ – it is only improbable, when put within the context of the normal human spectrum. And still, even time after time of being proven wrong, people _still_ refuse to _listen_.  
  
Unfortunately, the only other person who knows things as well as Sherlock does is content to let people live their ignorant lives – it frustrates Sherlock to no end.  
  
So, after years and years of trying, Sherlock has almost given up. No one wants to know, so perhaps there is no point in trying to share the truth. There are even days when he can see why Mycroft has turned into what he is now, much to his disgust.  
  
And then John comes along.  
  
John is the exception.  
  
Sherlock would never admit it out loud, but he doesn’t think that way the first time John steps into the lab at St. Bart’s. His thoughts when John enters sum up to: _war veteran. Desperate. Good for a bit and easily disposed of when a better option arises._ However, the moment Sherlock asks “Afganistan or Iraq,” he knows the man is different. All it takes to change Sherlock’s mind is a little spark. In John’s eyes there is the tiniest spark of interest, of wanting to know, of wanting to _learn_. For the first time in a very long time, here is someone who responds to Sherlock with something more than scorn and denial and _ignorance_. Suddenly, Sherlock feels alive. But this is only once, and once may just be a coincidence, so Sherlock sets his mind to the task of observing John.  
  
He is not disappointed.

  1. John does not gloat. Sherlock knows that even he, himself, is limited – he accepts that there are times the data is insufficient, and that there are times when probabilities fail. ( _Outliers_ , Sherlock thinks, _are problematic. But so very, very interesting._ ) John, when he points out that Sherlock is wrong (sister, not a brother, even though the odds of having a brother in this case is 90.2% higher than a sister), he states it as a fact. A mere statement of what is, not as a means to “feel better about himself,” to coin a term from Lestrade regarding Anderson.
  2. In the crime scene, John accepts that he could not figure out everything, and did not lash out when someone proved better than him. Even in a situation others would find “humiliating” (i.e., the possibility of being proven inadequate), John is willing to give it a try.
  3. John does not give in to Mycroft, which shows that John is not cowed by power or fear. (Furthermore, it irritates Mycroft, which is always a bonus.)



  
These are proof enough that John does not limit his mind for his own vanity, nor does he limit himself to a sense of “normality.” Sherlock would have been content with this. It is, as they say, “petty good,” but John – he proved to be _better_ than that. It was a gamble, and Sherlock doesn’t know what he would have done if John hadn’t done it; if the disappointment would have detracted from the satisfaction he'd already felt from his meeting John. None of this matters though, because when faced with the decision of finding truth or limiting himself to his fears and insecurities...  
  
John left his cane.  
  
With this, Sherlock _knows_ that they are the same; that John craves _purpose_ and _truth_ and _action_ – and that is better than anything Sherlock could have imagined in another person.  
  
John thinks he _might_ have saved Sherlock, when he shot that cabbie in the head – the truth is, John _did_ save Sherlock – but earlier and in a far deeper way than that.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Archived from [livejournal](http://alphera.livejournal.com). As with almost everything I write, beta'd by the wonderful [rougewinter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rougewinter).


End file.
